Canto XIX: Keep the Faith

LOS ANGELES (CA)
Gustavo Arellano’s Weekly

July 8, 2018

By Gustavo Arelllano

Greetings from Chicago, where the temperature is not triple digits like my Southern California homeland – in fact, it’s a little bit chilly. I’ve been in hotel conference rooms most of yesterday and today, talking about the most important work of my career, work most of you don’t even know about: the Catholic Church sex-abuse scandal in Orange County.

I never presume to know why people read my articles, but I’m confident in saying most people – if they even know who I am – know me best for my work about tacos, my former Mexican column, or my time as editor of OC Weekly.

But the real Gs know that 15 years ago, I was essentially a one-man Spotlight as I covered all the pedophile priests that the Diocese of Orange County tried to cover up for decades.

That part of my career is largely forgotten now. But one group remembers: sex-abuse survivors.

That’s why it’s an honor for me to be in Chicago, to be a speaker on the opening night of the annual conference for SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. This is their 30th anniversary of them being #metoo before #metoo, and doing it in an era when few dared to tell their stories because the rest of the world dismissed them as lunatics, whores, or just spat upon them.

But SNAP did.

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